Grace...

The past 6 weeks have been some of the most difficult of my life. Without going into great detail, on November 19, my Dad's mom fell gravely ill and we were contacted by the hospital that she was unresponsive and family needed to come. 2 days later, with my dad, mom, and brother by her side, she passed away... God granted us grace, by granting my grandmother grace. He saved her sometime this past year... My memories of her this past year are of a different lady then I grew up knowing. She has always been generous and loved us fiercely, but there was a softness I had never seen in her before this past year... 

Thanksgiving week was rough to say the least. The Saturday after Thanksgiving our entire family flew to Florida and spent several days together before her funeral service. 

Immediately after we returned, we experienced several weeks of sick children and the chaos that is Christmas decorating and shopping after losing essentially 3 wks. Both my mother and Riley were very ill up until Christmas Eve. 

Following Christmas, we spent 5 days in Illinois with Blake's family that was really a wonderful time apart from Hadley and Ainsley's sleepless pattern! :) So we came home exhausted and only about an hour after arriving in Louisville, Hadley spiked a 101 fever and kept it for 4 days... 

At the moment no one is ill! At the moment, the twins are beginning to settle back into a sleep pattern that involves Blake and I getting some sleep at night. At the moment I am typing away on my computer for the first time in months... I feel a bit like I am coming out of a fog. I feel like I am coming up from... not a pit, but perhaps a small hole? I found the above quote on Pinterest a few weeks ago and felt that it applied to this time of my life quite perfectly. 

Grace... It is all grace. 

I'm ready for 2014...